The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

In her ground-breaking reporting, Naomi Klein introduced the term "disaster capitalism". Whether covering Baghdad after the U.S. occupation, Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami, or New Orleans post-Katrina, she witnessed something remarkably similar. People still reeling from catastrophe were being hit again, this time with economic "shock treatment": losing their land and homes to rapid-fire corporate makeovers.

While reductive by the standards of scholarly argument, this powerful polemic tempts me to "must-read" hyperbole. Klein uses the analogy of psychological shock therapy to chronicle the rise, since the 1970s, of the economic "shock therapy" (their phrase!) advocated by Milton Friedman and the Chicago School. Sounds contrived and conspiricist, but isn't. This is well reported and argued. Klein's first point is that the Chicago School's free market "counter-revolution" has never arisen naturally by democratic means. It has been foisted upon countries, from Chile to Russia, only at opportune moments of disaster, then sustained through violent state action, usually abeted by the same inner ring of U.S. contractors and advisors. Her evidence, while not comprehensive by academic standards, is wholly convincing in its demonstration of repeated patterns and key players. In every case, the result has been a disaster made deadlier by economic ideology, ground-level mismanagement, and high-level corporate looting. This grim market logic culminates in Iraq with the Bush administration's systematic dismantling of government functions to be replaced by corporations and start-ups free to operate outside of legislative, judicial, or even market constraints. Work that local companies might have done, American companies utterly fail to do at ten times the cost, then pocket their billions, shrug, and move on. This is the economic analysis of the Iraq war that has been frustratingly absent in public debate. It is made all the more coherent by Klein's larger historical context. Worse, under Bush all of this is becoming deeply institutionalized. Large sectors of our economy are coming to depend on a "new frontier" of political and natural catastrophes, terror security chief among them. This important, eye-opening work is is also very well narrated here. One of the most worthwhile audio book I've bought. And no, I am neither friend nor relative nor ideologue, just newly won admirer.

A Tour of the Calculus

Were it not for the calculus, mathematicians would have no way to describe the acceleration of a motorcycle or the effect of gravity on thrown balls and distant planets, or to prove that a man could cross a room and eventually touch the opposite wall. Just how calculus makes these things possible and in doing so finds a correspondence between real numbers and the real world is the subject of this dazzling book by a writer of extraordinary clarity and stylistic brio.

I am about ten minutes into this, skipping ahead, and giving up for now, quite exasperated. I had hoped for a good overview and cultural description of calculus. This work is so wittily overwritten, so full of long, fanciful descriptions and soaring metaphor it is nearly impossible to remember what on earth we are talking about. The writing is actually good, but seems to have leapt the fence out its genre, striving to be Nabokov with little regard for the listener who just wants a bit of lucid mathematical explanation. I may try again later, but post this warning: you'll have to shovel aside heaps of colorful "prose" to get to anything about calculus.

The War State: The Cold War Origins Of The Military-Industrial Complex And The Power Elite, 1945-1963

Today when you factor in the interest on the national debt from past wars and total defense expenditures the United States spends almost 40% of its federal budget on the military. It accounts for over 46% of total world arms spending. Before World War II it spent almost nothing on defense and hardly anyone paid any income taxes. You can't have big wars without big government. Such big expenditures are now threatening to harm the national economy.

If you want a good high-school-level summary of the Cuban Missile Crisis with Kennedy as anti-establishment hero, by all means buy this work. As a bonus you will receive three final Chapters 9 to 12, which pad the audiobook out by repeating everything in the previous chapters, then telling you how to sign up for the next book on this important subject by the same author--who apparently, from the five-star reviews here, enjoys his own clique of eager followers.

Presumably, this next book will contain some new revelations, economic analysis, and original scholarship, though I wouldn't bet on it. The greatest failure of the book, apart from its numerous repetitions, superficial polemic, and slipshod writing (Is there an editor in the house?), is the lack of any economic context. I am actually sympathetic to the author's basic concept of the "war state," but he fails to detail the "industrial side" of the "military-industrial complex," the profits, credits, bond financing, and lobbying that continue to provide the economic inertia behind our immense weaponized Keynsianism.

Nor does the author take military Keynsianism seriously as a necessary logic of modern capitalism. His approach seems to be more libertarian than left, with the idea that by reducing the executive branch, the military bureaucracies, and large military industries we can reduce oppressive taxes and deficits and return to our roots as an isolationist Jeffersonian democracy of peaceful farmers, small-town banks, and small business entrepreneurs. This ignores not only economic reality, but our own national history since the Indian Clearances, the Mexican War, and the Spanish American War as an outward-rolling commercial-military empire, from Polk to Cheney.

That said, I thank the author for identifying NSC 68 as an interesting point of departure. There are a few good story details, a hopeful anti-militarism, and the reading is okay. If you really know nothing about this period of U.S. history, the book is worth the time.

Fractals: A Very Short Introduction

Many are familiar with the beauty and ubiquity of fractal forms within nature. Unlike the study of smooth forms such as spheres, fractal geometry describes more familiar shapes and patterns, such as the complex contours of coastlines, the outlines of clouds, and the branching of trees. In this Very Short Introduction, Kenneth Falconer looks at the roots of the "fractal revolution" that occurred in mathematics in the 20th century, presents the "new geometry" of fractals, explains the basic concepts, and explores the wide range of applications in science, and in aspects of economics.

So I plopped down ten dollars on behalf of everyone who wondered how the topic of fractals could possibly work in an audiobook format. The answer is, it doesn't. At least not for the most part. Large chunks of the book consist of recitations of equations, logarithms, and descriptions of images that make the ears glaze over. Still, I did give this title three stars. It does include a PDF with illustrations (though I listen on the go and rarely make use of such accompaniments.) Yet even though a good third of the content is hopeless in audiobook form, there are some very lucid, interesting explanations, and in the end I did feel that I learned a bit. Worth it if you're willing to consult the PDF and put up with long interludes of numerical droning.

Making History: How Great Historians Interpret the Past

How do historians create their histories? What role do the historian's viewpoint and method play in what we accept as truth? Answer these questions and more as you go inside the minds of our greatest historians and explore the idea of written history as it has shaped humanity's story over 2,000 years

A previous reviewer criticized the overwrought delivery on the part of this lecturer, and I failed to heed the warning, in part because a second reviewer rolled out an enthusiastic defense. From the sample, I thought I could manage. Wrong.

I hate to criticize a man who is obviously a good scholar, an enthusiast, and probably a fine, lively teacher in the flesh. But I'm afraid this venture just didn't work out. Perhaps at the publisher's urging, the material has been way, way over "popularized."

The thespian antics, wry chuckles, and jokiness seem aimed to hold the attention of a room full of six-year-olds. I almost picture the lecturer with hand puppets.I don't mind a bit of oomph and personality in a lecture. But this is so distracting I find it nearly impossible to grasp the content, which may be very good--but I'll never know.

There may be audience for this. If others feel differently, I hope they will write in. Perhaps I'm just old and mean, but I prefer scholarly lectures as I prefer a martini--straight up and dry, thank you.

A Companion to Hegel

G.W.F. Hegel (1770–1831) was one of the most important and sophisticated modern thinkers, but only now are his substantial contributions to metaphysics, epistemology, political philosophy, aesthetics, philosophy of history, and philosophy of religion gaining the recognition they deserve. This companion is the first collection of essays to do justice to the extraordinary richness and diversity of Hegel's philosophy.

First, any review of a 35-hour audio tome of essays on Hegel will be tempered by misgivings about the mental state of anyone who would actually purchase such a thing. An obscurantist dialectician with way too much time on his hands? Who can trust such a reviewer?

What can I say? The title doesn't lie. You know what you are getting. You either are a Hegelian or you are not a Hegelian--unless, of course, you are a Hegelian, in which case you are both.

As a matter of fact, I was delighted to find that these essays are relatively clear, quite diverse, and nicely comprehensive. The editor Stephen Houlgate is one of the best and most lucid of contemporary Hegel scholars. The works, so far, are clearer than one might expect, (though I have only started, and have a long ways to go before I approach the Judith Butler essay at the very end, where editor-defying syntactical horrors undoubtedly await).

The reading is clear, well-paced, and manly, seemingly sturdy enough for the 35-hour march. Though to differentiate the Hegel quotes the reader does toss in a German accent that to my ear sounds a bit odd. Of course, there are no recordings of Hegel himself, so perhaps he really did sound like Gandhi attempting Yiddish. (Though if he had, I suspect Schelling would have noted that for posterity.)

And then there are the publishers! It it is really very admirable that they would actually produce such an audiobook for the three individuals in the world who might be enticed to purchase it. A noble work. But...!

But why no chapter titles and a mismatch between the book chapters and the audio chapters, which renumber with each audio "part." So you have 35 essays and no way to find them by title or even by counting. Why do so many publishers do this? I mean, here we are with Google glasses and 3D printers. Is it really so hard just to divide and label the digital chapters? Am I missing something?

One of Hegel's contemporaries, I forget who, explained Hegel by noting that he was a Schwabian and Schwabians hate to be understood. Evidently his audio publishers are Schwabians as well. Aside from that, if you actually want to hear some good, clear Hegel commentaries--in shuffle mode--next time you're out jogging, this is the audiobook you've been waiting for!

Universe on a T-Shirt: The Quest for the Theory of Everything

No scientific quest is as exciting and elusive as the search to understand the Universe. Falk's book places this search in its historical context, tracing the quest from its roots in ancient Greece to the 21st century, through the breakthroughs of Newton, Maxwell, and Einstein, up to the excitement of "string theory" and today's efforts to merge quantum theory with general relativity. With as much emphasis on history as on science, Falk's enlightening and entertaining book is aimed very much for the general reader.

Relative to the two previous, seemingly conflicting reviews, I'll be a good dialectician and side with both. This book does function well as a concise beginner's overview of the main developments in physics. Nothing original, but clear and brief, well written and nicely read.

It is not, however, the more ambitious work implied in its title, the one I had hoped to get for my money. The book really does not deal with the philosophical issues entailed in a "theory of everything," a topic that might include the possibility of a metaphysics, the justification of Occam's Razor, the "peculiar efficacy" of mathematical equations, or the general role of reductionism in science. The "Universe on a T-Shirt" is little more than a heuristic gimmick.

The book also indulges, here and there, in the standard swipes at modern philosophy that seem so irresistible to science writers, the more so the less philosophy they have actually read. Buy it if you want a good, brief introduction. Just don't expect more intellectual sweat than you could soak up with a T-shirt.

The Platonic Tradition

This engaging course of lectures begins by providing a detailed and accurate overview of Plato's philosophy and it's central idea - the idea of a transcendent reality that has popularly become known as the theory of the Forms. Professor Kreeft then takes us on a concise journey through Western Philosophical history to show how that central idea - the theory of forms - has either been built upon or reacted to by philosophers ever since.

I may regret this hasty review, since I am only halfway through the book. But considering the enthusiastic review preceding (by which I was lured), I felt others should be warned. There is nothing wrong with this heartfelt, humane view of Plato, provided you are studying for a Jesuit ministry.

Christianity has been described as Plato for the masses, and in this lecture series Platonism is massively proto-Catholic. The strangeness of Greek thought is entirely sanitized. There is almost nothing about Plato's relationship to the Pythagoreans, the so-called pre-Socratics, the Sophists, the mystery cults, or the dramatists. Little about Whitehead or the Platonic strain in modern mathematics and physics. Indeed, little of what I would call philosophy.

The heroes of the story are Augustine, Saint Paul, C.S. Lewis, et al., the implied villains are the "modern" skeptics, relativists, reductionists, empiricist, nihilists, etc., who are dismissed with avuncular appeals to common sense and humanity. Behind the alluring humanism is deeply conservative, intolerant agenda, in my view. Buckley, Gingrich, Scalia, and the Straussians, would be on familiar intellectual terrain here.

Still, this is in some ways, a perfectly good introduction to the conservative, Christian line of Plato interpretation. I do not mean to sneer. But sometimes true believers are not the best teachers. Jaspers notwithstanding, Christ, Buddha, and Socrates had less in common than many seekers of inner stability would like to believe.

How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed

Ray Kurzweil, the bold futurist and author of the New York Times best seller The Singularity Is Near, is arguably today’s most influential technological visionary. A pioneering inventor and theorist, he has explored for decades how artificial intelligence can enrich and expand human capabilities. Now, in his much-anticipated How to Create a Mind, he takes this exploration to the next step: reverse-engineering the brain to understand precisely how it works, then applying that knowledge to create vastly intelligent machines.

I am offering this mainly as a quick, dissenting opinion. Having finished the book a week ago, I find that surprisingly little lingers in my mind. Undoubtedly Kurzweil (such an ironic name, given his passion for immortality) has an explanation for this in units of Shannon entropy. I am actually sympathetic to Kurzweil's post-humanist ambitions and mechanical modeling. It's nice to have a stream of books by such an ambitious techno-provocateur. But unless you are planning to tinker together a mind in your garage workshop, the book can be a little tedious. There is a lot about "pattern recognition" in the neocortex, which is not exactly news. We hear about "neuron firing" speeds and networks, about exponential rates of change and phase shifts, which again did not generate any "Aha" moments in this listener's mind. While Kurzweil trots out a few philosophers for refutation, the many philosophical and common-sensical objections against a physical analysis of consciousness are largely swept under the rug. As a visionary technologist with many knowledgeable admirers, Kurzweil has perhaps earned the right to tout (once again) his many correct predictions, though I don't know if anyone is keeping track of the hindsight factor. Still, his confidence reminds me of those brief, brilliant historical moments (the Vienna logical positivists; particle physics just prior to quantum theory) when thinkers felt certain they had finally drained the bogs of metaphysics, only to find paradoxes bubbling back up and themselves sucked back down. If you are a Kurzweil fan, by all means, enjoy. If you are building a brain in the basement, you may prefer the printed text. If you want an audiobook with fresh insights into the philosophy of mind or an ingenious new model of consciousness, you may find this disappointingly dry, bogless, and shallow. But easy on the ears: the reading is very good.

Everyday Quantum Reality

Most people have heard about quantum physics and its remarkable, well-nigh bizarre claims. And most people would assume that quantum reality describes a world quite different from ours. In this book, David A. Grandy shows that one can find quantum puzzles, or variations thereof, in the backyard of everyday experience.

When I take the hatchet to a book I’m usually happy if others offer a second opinion. After all, writing books is hard work and books are usually harmless artifacts at worst. In this instance I find myself in strong disagreement with the previous reviewer, though I can appreciate what he’s saying. The title is indeed misleading, and some parts of the book can strike you at first as pseudoscientific mumbling. But that is a mistaken assessment. This is not a book of science or explanation of quantum theory. It is best described as a series of philosophical essays on aspects of quantum theory with a distinctly phenomenological slant. The chief influence is the French existentialist Merleau-Ponty, along with some (largely unacknowledged) points from Husserl on music. This sounds unfathomable, but it is fairly straightforward. The best sections of the book explore the paradoxes of light and visibility, Goethe’s theory of color, and a very interesting, to me, discussion of the paradoxes entailed in geometric concepts of points and lines. It is true that the author can sound a tad cosmic here and there as he dwells on duality and the ineffable. At times he sounds like he is taking Western Science and Cold Cartesians to task. But many card-carrying quantum physicists and cosmologists are not far behind him in that respect. At its best the book can be (the pun seems inevitable) an illuminating discourse on the mysterious nature of light. I enjoyed most of it and have listened to a few sections over again with intellectual pleasure. It isn’t for everyone, as the other reviewer makes clear. But for those with a speculative bent, I recommend it as an interesting accompaniment to one of the standard audiobooks on quantum theory. The reading is easy on the ears, rather pleasantly quiet and meditative.

Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America

Charles H. Ferguson, who electrified the world with his Oscar-winning documentary Inside Job, now explains how a predator elite took over the country, step by step, and he exposes the networks of academic, financial, and political influence, in all recent administrations, that prepared the predators' path to conquest. Over the last several decades, the United States has undergone one of the most radical social and economic transformations in its history.

Even if you have read every previous book about the financial crisis, you should (actually, it is your patriotic duty to) read this one and then tell your friends to. Ferguson, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the producer of the Academy-Award-winning movie "Inside Job" has massive credibility, an even-handed, deadly serious temperament, and an overwhelmingly convincing argument. It is very simple. For the last thirty years, in the lead up to the 2008 financial crisis, America's financial industry has become systematically criminal. Not just greedy, not just unethical. Criminal.

Ferguson marshals overwhelming evidence of repeated criminal violations by the banks and others. Fraud, insider trading, money laundering, bribery, perjury, assisting drug gangs and other criminals, tax evasion, on and on. Day in and day out. A basic business model. He provides evidence that the same violations committed twenty years ago or by people outside of banking have produced serious criminal charges and convictions (remember Michael Milken and Martha Stuart?). Yet even after the financial collapse that has wrecked millions of lives and is now toppling Western democracies, there have been zero criminal prosecutions of major bankers, ratings agencies, hedge fund managers, or other financial players. None. At most the banks have paid trifling fines, admitted nothing, and then repeated the same crimes over and over.

Why? Because they pay off both political parties and because they now belong to a corrupt, entrenched American oligarchy similar to those in Russia or Mexico. They are quite literally too big to prosecute. The banks have succeeded in gutting the regulatory agencies, intimidating opponents, and buying political influence. As in Zola's famous book, "J'accuse," Ferguson does not so much raise new evidence as simply state the obvious. He provides an excellent overview of the financial industry since 1980 and the 2008 crisis. But his main contribution is to simply point out that all this was, in fact, criminal. And nothing has been done. The same large-scale criminality simply continues, the same crimes committed, the same apologies, the same fines, the same promises, then back to business. As long as the actors themselves are not convicted and can retire wealthy in good social standing, nothing will change.

Ferguson goes so far as to name names and provide the government with the evidence and the laws violated. He hands it to the Justice Department on a silver platter, as have many others. Yet nothing happens. Being more of a leftist, I would go further than Ferguson and say that, under a fiat money system, the banks have effectively privatized tax collection. By a complex, yet blatant three-step process, our tax money that should be going to social security, for example, is going to a tiny, wealthy, criminal elite and their inside "shareholders." Ferguson argues for mass criminal prosecutions of the sort that happens outside of banking. I would also argue for nationalization of major banking functions. Either we nationalize banks or the banks continue to privatize national fiscal policy. In any case, this book is lucid, illuminating, important. No "vampire squids" or screechy moralizing. Just a serious civic polemic. And by the way, the reading is also excellent.

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